Media Watch
Don't kill/shoot/blame/scapegoat the messenger. Choose your verbal weapon, but the basic meaning is nearly the same. Throughout history the bearer of bad tidings is seldom popular. "Hatred" has become today's media's one word of choice.
So writes Washington-based First Amendment lawyer Bruce Sanford in a new book opting for the word "Shoot" in its title. He reminds us that growing criticism of the media, while often devastatingly valid, can threaten or even undermine free speech foundations for all.
He has more than a point, or at least a point that needs to be heeded when weighed among press critics. His stance is not new, as he chronicles criticism of news coverage a century through selected episodes to today.
Take, for local example, roughly three years ago when Town Crier Editor Bruce Barton wrote a column on "The lessons to be learned from bad news."
No, Barton said then and says now, your local weekly does not become a National Enquirer tabloid-type when it reported that someone in the Los Altos area was going around decapitating rabbits.
Unfortunately that was news even if it made residents and other community leaders squirm at the imagery and implications. One simply cannot bury one's head in the sand to try to avoid such unpleasantries close to home.
To do so would be more journalistically irresponsible in suppressing the community pulse than any possible sensationalism or miniscule newsstand sales.
Stories about auto thefts and home burglaries tend to alert; so, too, do more sensitive stories about child molestation and even the reporting of a suicide. How such stories are treated may well be an issue; that they usually "have to be reported" should not be.
Society's ills need to be exposed and discussed if any constructive efforts at problem-solving can be attempted. Freedom of speech and press are for all of us. Take them away and the world may seem nice, but we are left information-poorer for it.
None of these sound-good, sometimes overly-defensive stances should be used to excuse blatant excesses nor to encourage such practices as over-emphasizing the negative or seedy presentations. But reality bites when we all look into mirrors.
A lot of what appears especially in television news and TV "news magazines" and "talk shows" tends to be a startling reflection of what large segments of viewers really want (some excitement) and don't (dullness).
Despite our protests, we often get large chunks of the media we deserve. Individually are we being served? Often probably not, but then we must ask ourselves: What kinds of media choices are we making as individuals to obtain and consume what we profess we truly want and need?
Freedom usually includes the heady option of not having to read, watch or listen. If you don't like the message carrier, don't immediately tear the message apart.
And if you don't like the message, also don't, without mighty good reasons, automatically dismiss the carrier.